Narrows (bridge, Perth)

First Road Bridge

A close distance between Cape Mill and Lewis at the foot of Mount Eliza was proposed for the construction of the site in 1849. Its construction project was proposed in 1899, but the expected cost of its creation of £ 13,000 was found to be too high. Geodetic work on the ground began only in 1947, but was suspended due to the construction of the interchange, opened in 1952. However, after two years, traffic through this junction grew so that they again returned to the idea of ​​building a bridge between Cape Mill and Lewis. ^[one]

Research on the new bridge section began in August 1954. His project was proposed by the Urban Planning Commission, chaired by . The site also required the restoration of 60 acres (24 ha) of land for this bridge approach. For this purpose (3,400,000 m³) of sand was brought, most of which was recovered from the River section. The construction of the bridge was approved by the state government in November 1954 and confirmed in 1955 by the Hepburn – Stephenson plan .

The riverbed at the site of the proposed bridge was not ideal for the construction of the bridge: it had a soft muddy bottom up to 24 meters deep, with a further 12 meters deep sand bed. Ernie Godfrey, a bridge engineer from the Department of Main Roads, was sent overseas to inspect the bridges in similar geological locations and find a designer for the proposed bridge. As a result, the contract for the design of the bridge was concluded with the British engineering company Maunsell & Co. The construction of the bridge began in 1956 and was built by the Danish company Christiani and Nielsen together with the Australian engineering firm JO Clough & Son (now Clough Limited ). The first batch of building materials was delivered on June 8, 1957, work on prefabricated reinforced concrete beams began in September 1957, and the first of them was set in place in February 1958. The last concrete beam was installed in June 1959. During the construction of the bridge, then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labor proposed to name the Golden West Bridge , but, since Golden West was already the name of a popular soft drink, his proposal was rejected.

The construction of the bridge took 2 years and 5 months. It was officially opened by Governor on November 13, 1959. He erected a memorial plaque with West Australia's Prime Minister and other officials and was the first to cross the new bridge. At that time, the Narrows Bridge was the largest precast concrete bridge in the world. ^[2]

In 1996, Structural Systems Ltd carried out work to strengthen the bridge. Also this year, a new decorative night lighting was installed on each side of the bridge. On January 8, 1999, the bridge was entered on the State Register of Cultural Heritage and in November 1999 was recognized by the Institute of Engineers of Australia as a national engineering attraction.

Second Road Bridge

Plans for a second, parallel bridge were discussed in the 1970s. By 1998, when almost 50 years had passed, the original bridge carried 155,000 cars per day, an average of 2,700 cars per lane from 07:30 to 08:30 and was considered Australia's busiest highway section. Such traffic far exceeded the expected throughput of the bridge when it was opened in 1959. In 1998, it was decided that the construction of a second bridge next to the existing one would be most successful. A plan to expand the Narrows Bridge was announced on April 13, 1998: with a cost of $ 70 million, four additional lanes were added. According to the plan, six lanes were planned on each bridge, including one bus lane. The new one was supposed to stand six meters from the first, its design should look like the original.

In July 1998, a tender was announced to expand the bridge, and on March 7, 1999, Leighton Contractors (now the CIMIC Group ) was declared a construction contractor. The contractual price of the contract was reduced to $ 49 million due to the construction method proposed by Leighton Contructors . Connell Wagner (now Aurecon ) became the project designer. The bridge was built according to the method of gradual launch, with 28-meter segments cast on both banks. Initially, it relied on temporary piles, after the dismantling of which the bridge began to rely on its own supports. Construction required to hammer about 250 steel piles. The bridge was opened for traffic on February 26, 2001, the official opening ceremony led by Minister of Transport was held on May 30, 2001. It was originally planned that the bridge would be opened in August 2000. During the construction of the second bridge, the first bridge was simultaneously modernized. ^[3]

Railway Bridge

Already during the construction of the second road bridge, the problem of railway communication between the cities of and Manger became apparent. As a result of heated discussions, the option of building a railway bridge in the 6-meter gap between the existing road bridges was chosen, which was won by Leighton Constructions . The authors of the railway crossing project were GHD , Coffey Geosciences and Wyche Consulting . Construction began in July 2005, completion was expected by December of the same year. The first passengers followed it on December 23, 2007. The bridge was made of nine steel beams, each weighing up to 99.5 tons and a length of up to 54 meters. Beams were created in the city of Kwinana Beach , transported to the place and installed using a crane. ^[four]

• Narrows bridge
• The narrows bridge
• The Narrows Bridge: 60 years of history